


Immutability

by MiraMira



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: 1000-3000 words, Community: lgbtfest, Female Protagonist, Gen, Lesbian Character, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-26
Updated: 2010-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-06 17:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraMira/pseuds/MiraMira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miss Bones has a problem Minerva doesn't think she can solve.  She's more right than she knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Immutability

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a prompt by wisdomeagle@LJ.

"Professor McGonagall?" Minerva looked up from the essays she'd been grading to see a blond-plaited figure in yellow and black robes standing in the doorway of her classroom. She barely had an opportunity to make eye contact before it retreated. "Oh, you're busy. I'll come back."

"Not at all, Miss Bones." As a gesture of goodwill, Minerva laid down her pen. "Have a seat."

The sixth-year continued to hover. "If you're sure."

"Please." Truth be told, she was grateful for the distraction. First-year definitions of the Theory of Mutability could be headache-inducing if not taken in small doses.

The brief pause as her visitor picked out a desk and slid into it gave Minerva an opportunity to both finish marking the assignment at the top of the pile and to review her mental file on Amelia Bones. It wasn't very long. Unlike her older brother Edgar, whose talent for Transfiguration had only been outstripped by his enthusiasm, Amy's work was capable but uninspired; Minerva had the impression she'd continued taking the subject at the NEWT level to expand her options when she followed most of her family into the Ministry. Personality-wise, she'd proven herself a stabilizing influence on multiple occasions, speaking only when she had something to contribute or felt a need to bring her classmates' discussion back on track in a diplomatic fashion. Her appointment to prefect had been a given, and her nomination to Head Girl next year was almost as assured.

There was nothing, in short, to explain the girl's fidgeting, or why she kept looking toward the now-closed door as though prepared to bolt at any second. And as the settling-in period stretched out into an unsettling silence, it became increasingly clear that she did not plan to offer any explanations.

Not without prompting, at any rate. "Miss Bones? Is everything all right?"

"What?" Amy jumped. "Yes. I mean, no. I mean…" She did her best to compose herself. "I'm sorry, Professor. I'm afraid it's something of a…personal matter."

Minerva nodded. She'd already suspected as much, but felt an instinctive cringe at the open declaration. Some of the younger students, she knew, thought that professors existed inside their classrooms the way portraits did in their frames, interacting with the outside world only when it intruded upon them. Apart from the occasional mischievous suggestion she might spy on them as a cat to ensure they were studying for exams, she felt no particular urge to disabuse them of this notion. Let them go to Horace if they wanted a friend; she was content with the role of teacher.

Nonetheless, "advisor" was part of the job description, and as such, she was obligated to do her best. "Take your time, dear."

Having overcome the initial hurdle, though, Amy seemed determined to press on. "Suppose…suppose you had these feelings." She hesitated a second, as though expecting Minerva to ask for clarification. Noting the girl's reluctant tremble, no doubt brought on by the prospect of explaining the billywigs and bugbears to a woman old enough to be her mother, Minerva simply waited for her to continue. "And you knew that they were wrong, so you tried to bottle them up and hope that they went away. But there was a boy who wouldn't leave you alone, and your friends kept teasing you, and you just couldn't keep pretending…" She burst into tears. "And now everything's awful, and I feel scared and sick and I don't know what to do!"

"There, there." Minerva conjured up a handkerchief and pressed it into a still-sobbing Amy's palm. Despite the gaps in the account, her only question was _which_ boy was responsible for the trouble: she'd noted Gordon Davies' increasingly dramatic attempts to escort Miss Bones to her next class, along with Bertie Macmillan's overly spirited defense of his fellow prefect's virtue. Amy hadn't struck her as the type to succumb to blunt chivalry of any sort, but she hardly considered herself an expert in these matters. "I am flattered you've come to me, but…perhaps Madam Pomfrey would be a wiser choice?"

Amy stopped sniffling into the hanky. "I tried that. She said I should talk to you."

"Did she?" Here was a turn down a hallway she hadn't encountered before. What had Poppy considered beyond her store of cheerfully direct advice, or the girl's own Head of House? Even if the problem wasn't what she'd first thought, surely Pomona's earthy, maternal style would lend itself better to affairs of the heart than…

Oh. _Oh._ The mental file on Miss Bones suddenly filled with reams of additional information, as though someone had taken a wand and reversed a Vanishing spell. Why had she never noticed that while the boys squabbled, it was always Emily Summers that Amy looked to for support?

Because if she had noticed, others would have, too. And if it were that simple, Minerva knew, she would never have ended up in a position to notice.

Of course, that raised the question of how _Poppy_ had known where to send the girl. Minerva would need to forgo any staff excursions to the Three Broomsticks until she figured it out.

Amy was backing away from her now, trembling harder than ever, eyes bright with fear. "Madam Pomfrey said you wouldn't tell anyone."

She'd been staring, she realized. Naturally, the girl had assumed the worst. "I won't," she said, putting as much reassurance into her voice as she could manage.

"I don't _want_ to be like this. You have to believe me."

"I do." This time, she had to keep her fervency in check.

Amy babbled on as though she hadn't spoken. "I know I shouldn't have bothered anyone, but she insisted. And it made sense. Transfiguration is change. The parts becoming a different whole. If there's any way to change me, I had to try. I _had_ to."

She knew what she ought to say. Express regret, swear secrecy again, then show her visitor the door and thereby secure her own escape. But she could no more have done it than she could have flown in her Animagus form. "Please calm down, Miss Bones. You came to me for help, and I intend to give it."

"You…you do?" The girl was still trembling, but with hope now. "You can? How?"

"That part is up to you."

Amy's face flashed through disappointment and anxiety, before settling on determination. "Where should I start?"

"By living." Minerva reached out and took Amy's hand. "With caution, yes, and with sacrifice, and not without heartbreak, but if I try to take those from you—from anyone—then I take your humanity as well. And humans deserve love and happiness." She held Amy's gaze until she was sure the girl had read the entire message there. "_All_ of us."

Amy absorbed this for a moment. Then, quietly, she asked, "Who told you that, Professor?"

A corner of Minerva's mouth turned up at the memory. "I learned it from Headmaster Dumbledore."


End file.
